


Requiem

by Coldest_Fire



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: AU- Spike and Dru didn't break up post s2, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angelus tries to create a second masterpiece, Cassie Newton knows when she's going to die, F/M, Found Family, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Just So Much Poetry, Masterpiece part two, Prophetic Visions, Set in a very different s7, sorry guys Dru's backstory came up again
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:41:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29256885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldest_Fire/pseuds/Coldest_Fire
Summary: Cassie Newton knows when she is going to die--161 years after the last masterpiece Angelus created from a woman who saw the future.A dead victorian woman, even one who rose like a fallen angel, and turned to smoke in the baptismal font would never find her musings on Tumblr. Maybe it felt better to be talking to someone. To not feel like she was going crazy—or like, if she was, someone else saw it. 161 years apart, but the story never changed. Down to the date, she was the same as the fallen. The difference is, she didn’t see what would happen if she was able to rise. Maybe she’d go up in smoke.“Can you see me?” She plead, “please? Please can you see me?” And then put her head in her hands, strands of blonde and purple hair spilling free around her face, “I don’t want to die.”“Cassie,” her mother called from downstairs, “dinner is getting cold.”
Relationships: Drusilla/Spike (BtVS)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 8





	1. Ink Drips Down The Spine

**Author's Note:**

> So this entire mess came to me, and who knows when anything is getting finished, so also sorry. Wouldn't it be cool though, if Dru met someone else who saw the future (and got to save her too?)

“Cassie, it’s dinner,” her mother called up the stairs, the smell of roast beef wafting up the stairs.

Cassie looked down at her keyboard, then decidedly hit a few more keys. There wasn’t time to leave anything unfinished. She’d probably never have time to figure out where she’d left off. She looked at it, and, not bothering with a title, launched it onto her blog.

“I subside into history,

Pages spread, stained, ink

Drips down the spine.

The dates parallel, somehow

_exact._

Hearts cut out in paper

And flesh, dripping streamers,

Streaming

Ink and history. Crack the ribs-

Spine. The pages

Do not forget, two of a kind

And one to make it

To fit the bindings-

The bolded cover

_14”_

Her Tumblr had exactly three older poems, all with the same gist. All three people who’d liked the others had never seen so much out of this dormant blog. She deleted most of her older stuff. It wasn’t accurate any longer. This needed to _remain._ People needed to hear her. There was a lot she wouldn’t see that needed to be known, or, she hoped she wouldn’t see. She started up a rare text post, an address to someone she knew.

“You saw it, right? I don’t know. Sometimes it’s not me I see. Sometimes the halls are narrow, and the carpets gush when I tread them. Sometimes I see glass, some shattered, and some staring—gaping eyeholes in the glass. Do you see me too? Am I you? I feel like you. Sometimes you talk in tongues, but I’ve slowly started to understand you. There’s a heart in the chalice, and a devil, or a god, or whatever wears a man’s body covered in blood. You look like a bird out of the sky from the ceiling. White and red. What do I look like to you?”

That, she titled: _Fallen Angel’s Eternal Torment_

A dead victorian woman, even one who rose like a fallen angel, and turned to smoke in the baptismal font would never find her musings on Tumblr. Maybe it felt better to be talking to someone. To not feel like she was going crazy—or like, if she was, someone else saw it. 161 years apart, but the story never changed. Down to the date, she was the same as the fallen. The difference is, she didn’t see what would happen if she was able to rise. Maybe she’d go up in smoke.

“Can you see me?” She plead, “please? Please can you see me?” And then put her head in her hands, strands of blonde and purple hair spilling free around her face, “I don’t want to die.”

“Cassie,” her mother called from downstairs, “dinner is getting cold.”

***

They’d been on the road of hours, Dru leaning against Spike’s arm, half asleep from what he saw, which wasn’t a surprise—the sun was just setting. A blood-red ball on the horizon, staring in the driver’s side window. He was driving up the coast, just trying to reach somewhere they’d never been. Maybe they’d head all the way up to Canada and explore the island—seemed like a nice place. More importantly, if they hopped small town to small town, no one had to notice them. They were driving through California—his least favourite part of the drive when Dru sat up, as though she’d heard something loud. She startled awake.

“Did you hear something, love?” Spike asked, turning to face her. Her eyes were glassy, and she bit her lip, hard enough it was bloodless and pale. Whatever she saw, It was bad. He didn’t like it when her eyes went glassy. He drove his car off the highway, into a ditch, and took her hands. “Dru?” He asked, “what are you seeing?”

She made a soft noise, and plead, “already _seen_ this part.” There was another long pause and she tipped her head into her hands, pulling them free of Spike’s. Her face shifted f to that of a vampire, and she moved her hands to cover her ears, as though whatever she was hearing was too loud. “I’ve already seen, you’re being _cruel!”_ She screamed, her back shuddering. She was crying. Spike knew better than to touch her when she was seeing something that upset her this much, no matter how much he wished he could pull her into his arms and make it go away.

“It’s all written. _He_ has it, please, it’s in the stars, they know,” her voice lowered until he couldn’t make out words, but she was talking fervently ,in an even, fast paced tone, as if by rote. When he was able to catch words, they seemed to come out in latin. _Qui tolis pecatta mundi dona eis requiem…qui tolis pecatta mundi dona nobis pacem._

It sounded like a spell, until he placed it. Prayers. Church latin. He froze, and then began to talk over, singing some song they’d heard on the radio, his voice gentle. _“This world will never be what I expected…”_ if he kept singing, she’d find his voice. She always found him, when she needed out. It gave her something to hold onto that she knew was his. He’d been through the whole song three or four times when she squeezed his hands—a sign she was back.

He fell silent, and then asked, “what did the stars make you see, pet?”

Dru shook her head, and pointed forward, toward the sun. “Not long now… always loved that bloody day. Loved it when the hearts are all out and ready to be plucked through the ribs. There are no eyes on her, none but his and mine,” she shuddered, “it’s not _fair._ It was over.” There was a fury to her voice. He unbuckled his seatbelt and slid over, stroking her back, and pulling her into his lap. Her eyes were red when her face shifted back to its human state. “No glass, no church, no eyes but mine? Am I to be a saint? Am I the eyes in the walls?”

Her voice picked up speed and agitation, “Why do I have to play the saint when there’s nothing left in my chest? It’s not fair to put me up in glass—too sharp? Would you get hurt if we took me out and put me back together? Didn’t you?” Her voice was animated, frantic. Her hands cupped either side of his face, “No one calls to the Accuser when there isn’t proper glass, and no proper eyes. I think I should go blind,” she stopped to take a wholly unnecessary breath, as though, for a moment, she didn’t know she wasn’t alive. Her lungs grasped for it with the same desperation.

Spike covered her eyes with one hand, gentle enough she could pull away, and she tipped her head into it, making a relieved sound. There was a long, heavy silence, before she spoke again. “The devil’s on your heels,” she repeated, picking up a faint Irish accent, “and this time I’m just one of the saints.”

Spike knew enough to know what she meant. If she asked to run, he’d carry her to the ends of the earth, but that was never in her nature. This was the same woman, albeit more than a century later, who’d offered herself to _him,_ if he’d spare the others, even seeing—knowing—what he’d do to her. She was never the one to leave others to his hands. He had her playing the eyes in the glass, she’d do what they didn’t for her. It was cruel not to let her out, after all these years, and, worse, it meant he’d lost his soul again. “What do you need me to do?” He asked, his voice low, trying to hold together for the both of them.

"Would you save me?" she asked, her eyes disarmingly human. The plea in them was ancient, a wound that never quite healed. 

He took off his coat, and wrapped it around her shoulders, looking in her eyes before he started the car up, and got back on the road, headed the opposite way towards the last intersection. When he made a right past the signs for it, he did his best not to think of all the things that town had seen. "Every moment of this life," he promised. 


	2. Hurtling to The End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy meets Cassie and finds out about her impending death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! so this chapter breaks down how in particular s6 ended up different with Spike and Dru Absconding together.
> 
> Now, to avoid a massive expo-dump, I did a tiny bit of retelling as buffy. Basically, the way it happened:
> 
> -buffy was still resurrected  
> -she wasn't handling it great, but without Spike as an outlet, she turned to slaying, and did increasingly risky things to feel alive. The danger did something for that  
> -Giles moved back to Sunnydale, which helped with the financial issues, and got Faith released becasue of his concerns about Buffy in danger  
> -Faith took over a bunch of the slaying, which Buffy did not appreciate, but slowly, she got to reintegrate to friends/family until things were almost normal  
> -Xander and Anya's wedding went the same as canon  
> -Cordelia came up to deliver a warning about warren with a gun  
> -Warren went to jail after failing to shoot buffy, therefore tara is alive (also there was no magic is drugs arc)  
> -somehow, no one told angel about buffy being back. 
> 
> I liked this chain of events, so I might write more fic in this timeline. I also like Faith being here, and mostly, Spike and Dru being together.

_One Month Earlier_

Buffy was enjoying a lazy evening at home, with Willow and Tara out on Date Night, Dawn legitimately at Janice’s (she’d learned to check) and Xander off with his construction buddies. She was had just gotten back from training with Giles—Faith took patrol on Saturday nights, in exchange for Fridays off to hit the Bronze. Things were normal for the first time since she’d come back. She guessed she owed Giles a thanks for getting another slayer up here, and Faith a thanks for pistol-whipping that stalker guy who was going to shoot her, and apparently Tara, according to Cordy, who was surprisingly less of a bitch than Buffy remembered.

She was debating making herself some popcorn and watching something cheesy, or maybe a bubble bath with a bajillion scented candles out of Willow and Tara’s massive collection (though not the essence of slug one—she’d learned to identify that one fast). It was so _inordinately_ normal that she wanted to savour it. She was even doing an interview for a job in a couple days, one down at the school, which Dawn had only recently relented to let her take, because before it was _weird_ for her sister to be working there, but now it was _cool_ that Buffy having money meant the chance to do things they otherwise couldn’t afford.

And then a knock. She assumed it was a door to door sales person, or a travelling missionary—those seemed to be pretty prevalent in Sunnydale. Lots of people found religion, or maybe ones wearing holy symbols just lived longer and reproduced. She wasn’t sure which, but she thought most of them had this house checked off as a witch house, or a blasphemy place all full of Faith’s leather pants. It was also way late for the preaching. The sun had set like an hour ago. Brave little missionaries. If they had free crosses, she’d even let them put a little check mark on their missionary sheet—never too many of those.

Her highest expectation when she got the door was for a cheap plastic rosary she could use as an emergency weapon.

She opened the door and everything changed. Angel looked like he was seeing a ghost. He said her name like he’d never tasted it before, and fell to his knees when he touched her hand enough to know she was real. There were so many words, so much to say. So much to know, but he just sat there a moment, in stunned silence on the doorstep, a sigh hissing past his lips with no words.

And then came the talking. When she asked later, Xander swore he’d phoned LA and told Angel directly that Buffy was back, but Angel hadn’t visited. Willow quietly assumed it was because he was worried seeing her was going to make him a little too happy. Buffy hadn’t thought of it, except to be glad he wasn’t watching her spiral. Giles hadn’t wanted to speak to him more than necessary when he was getting Faith extradited, though he supposed, in retrospect, asking for a slayer to be sent to Sunnydale might have contributed to Angel not knowing, even if Xander swore he’d told him, and Cordelia had been back and forth. It seemed like everyone had their own reasons not to pass it along.

Somehow, Angel hadn’t known Buffy was back for almost a year. Cordelia was going to come up to Talleys Willow about some evil under the new high school, and a request to drop in on some girl Cordy wanted to know about—apparently she thought maybe she also saw the future. Angel decided to go himself, or he still wouldn't know. 

He’d stayed. Buffy thought, after knowing she was dead, he couldn’t stand to go again, and she liked it. She worked at the school during the day, and they slayed in the evenings, even if Faith got a bit scarcer—she didn’t like being third wheel. They were careful, of course. They shared a bed a lot, but there was no _happy endings_ going on, and he swore, he wasn’t going to get there just on seeing her, not when his mind was always gonna remind himself that he wasn't there to save her after the whole Glory thing. Which was sweet, in a weird way where she didn’t like that he felt bad, except that he needed to for the sake of the world and all.

It was nice, either way. _Normal_. She went weeks at a time without thinking about heaven.

He was going to stay indefinitely, especially once something weird had started happening at Sunnydale High. People started dying. Just turning up, horribly mutilated, after being seen _just fine_ during the day. They’d been working on figuring out what kind of demon did that, but they only had three people dead, and the only common factor was that they went to Sunnydale High. Dawn was a lot more careful these days, and Buffy, despite going through some files _totally legally_ at work on the kids, hadn’t found any common factor. A girl in Junior year, varsity swimmer. A Guy, freshman year, but taking sophomore classes, who seemed like Willow, but younger. Another girl, who was kind of a stoner, senior year. No common friends, or activities. 

Monday, February 10th was the first break Buffy caught in the case. She worked as an _advisor_ —not a counsellor, because that required a masters degree and a lot higher salary, but basically as someone who'd survived Sunnydale High and could tell other people how. Basically, she helped people figure out how they were going to finish school, or stop causing problems, or whatever they needed to do. She didn’t have anyone booked, which mostly meant she was supposed to be entering grades for a lazy English teacher, but instead was going through the papers on her desk to put that off.

Buffy looked up from that messy stack of papers, hastily scrawled notes, mostly on who to check in with, and what _not_ to say, and a small reminder to pick up blood on the way home, because a certain someone was thirsty. She looked up from her pages when the next student opened the door, seeing a girl with light blonde and purple hair, in dark clothes. Her shirt proclaimed some band buffy bet that only _Spike_ would know, wherever he’d gotten with his weird girlfriend. She reminded herself to be relieved she’d never seen him again.

“Hey,” she said, just as the email arrived at her desktop from the same teacher who couldn’t seem to input her own grades. “Cassie Newton incoming.”

_Yeah, thanks for the heads up,_ Buffy sighed internally, before putting on her adult voice and asking, “So, Cassie, looks like you were just with Miss Shambler, whatcha doing down here?” She asked.

Cassie hesitated, seeming to need a moment to compose a coherent response. “I don’t want to do the group project,” she said, after a pause, “I just don’t really care about it right now,” she shrugged. Buffy wa a little surprised by her response. Normally people tried to tell her why, or justify their apathy. She didn’t seem bothered. She shrugged it off like she didn’t really care how Buffy responded either.

Buffy tried her usual approach first, “trust me, I get how much high school can be frustrating, but once it’s over you can do pretty much anything,” she offered, “like college, or travelling, or stuff,” she said, a little lamely, “and it’s not great, but everything these days seems to need a high school diploma, so maybe if we just look at this as something we have to slog through…”

Cassie shrugged, “I’m not going to get to any of that stuff,” she said, again with an air of this kind of certainty. Buffy didn’t like where that was going. It sounded a lot like Cassie had given up, and that meant either she had something else big lined up, or she had a whole big plan for…nothing. Buffy was reminded of the speech she delivered in the little tower the old campus, to Jonathan all those years ago. Worse still, maybe she thought she was going to get killed by whatever was killing students.

“Why not?”

“Hey,” she said, some recognition sparking in her eyes, “you’re Dawn’s sister, aren’t you. I know you seemed familiar. Dawn’s pretty great.”

As much as Buffy was glad people liked Dawn, she wasn’t letting Cassie redirect, “Cassie, why aren’t you going to do any of that?” She pressed.

Cassie looked down at the scribbled-on cover of her binder, “you’re not going to understand this, but I’m going to die on Friday. And I need you to not call 911, or tell my mom, or anything, because that’s not going to fix it, and I don’t want to spend the last little bit of time in a psych ward.”

Buffy was alarmed, “Okay. No mom, no psych ward. Cassie,” she paused, not knowing how to tell her this, “you don’t have to die on Friday. I know things feel impossible right now, but there’s always a way-”

Cassie cut her off, “I _told_ you you weren’t going to get it. I don’t want to die. I just _am._ Friday. I’ve known for a little while now. There’s some hundred and sixty year thing going on, and there’s this victorian girl…” she bit her lip, before shaking her head, she knew she sounded crazy. “All I know is that Friday night, I’m gonna turn up really, really gone. I hope I’m out of there before most of it…”

It was the first she’d shown her feelings on the matter, her shoulder curling in, and sniffling a little. She didn’t _want_ to die. She was scared. She didn’t want Buffy, sister of Dawn, to try to stop it though. She had the worst feeling about how that ended for anyone else involved. She’d seen other bodies—other people with no hearts, strung up in multiple pieces. Other people sucked into the curse of 14. It wasn’t a coincidence that the 3 poems she’d posted were each about one of the others. She knew where they’d be. Knew what parts of them were missing. She didn’t have names, necessarily, except for the guy, who was in a couple of her classes. And she felt like, if people tried to intervene, they were going to share her fate.

Buffy’s eyes were full of some kind of recognition that Cassie didn’t understand, “Cassie, are you going to… Is it like the other 3 people who’ve disappeared from Sunnydale high?” She asked, frantically scrawling something Cassie couldn’t read down. Cassie didn't know what to tell her. Obviously it was, but it wasn't like she'd been threatened by the man she saw--if he was really a man. 

Cassie nodded, _“kind of._ It’s worse than the other three, because I’m part of the legacy, I think. The other ones were—they showed me what happened before. Whatever does it is practicing or something. I can’t find anything on the victorian, but I know I’m her legacy, somehow— _we’re the same day.”_ Her voice wavered, “Buffy, if you think I’m crazy, I can prove I knew about the other three before they happened.”

Buffy shook her head, “I don’t think you’re crazy, Cassie. But I also don’t think you’re going to die. We’ve stopped things like this before. I know it seems hopeless, but I need you to trust me. And I need to know what you know about this,” she plead.

Cassie knew she meant well, but she was already losing Friday evening to her death, she didn't want to lose more of her time. Buffy meant well, but she wasn’t strong enough to stop whatever did it, and she couldn’t get her killed. It felt like it was already close to her, somehow. “That’s all I’ve got, now, uh, I’m going to go back to English. Mike is _hopeless_ with analysis, and maybe I can do something nice for him,” she offered, not letting Buffy say whatever she was about to say, “and, thanks for being nice, and not calling me crazy. And, your shirt. It’s nice. Put a sweater on please, red doesn’t come out of white well at all.”

She shut the door and ran to the bathroom, locking herself into one of the stalls to break down somewhere she wouldn't be seen. She didn’t want this. She’d never wanted this. There was an ad for the valentines dance taped to the inside of the door, all festooned with hearts and streamers. She ripped it down and tore it up, flushing the resulting confetti, and watching red hearts bleed ink into the water, swirling until they were gone.

_“Hearts bleed in red ink, but leave no stain,_

_Black and white fallen angel, cementing place_

_The sticky wooden sacred we profane_

_Faded photographs, let me retrace_

_Your step by step hurtling to the end_

_The fires and the floods—if time suspend”_

She threw that onto her Tumblr without a second thought. A shortened sonnet—one stanza and a Volta that didn’t make a difference. It felt a whole lot like the time she had left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yay! I updated a thing rather than posting more new ones. lets see how long I can do that for! I'm also in the process of constructing a mockup of Cassie's blog, on Tumblr, so maybe I'll even have that as supplementary material too!


End file.
